Upside Down: Maybe the tortoise knows something

The other night my husband made eggplant parmesan. He started at 6 and was still cooking at 9. Instead of putting the eggplant on broil, he baked it on 200. Instead of getting a fierce tan, the oiled disks got a hint of color like careful beach babes, “We don’t want to get burned now do we?”

At 7, he sautéed mushrooms over a candle flame. At 8, he ladled tomato sauce onto his concoction, one tiny teaspoon at a time like he was painting the Mona Lisa.

At 9, when I saw him shred mozzarella with a nail file, I became frantic and realized the worst: He had been infected, seduced, inspired by the ancient Galapagos land tortoise.

When you go to the Galapagos Islands, if you spend too much time watching the giant tortoise pick up one leg and before putting it down, hold it aloft long enough to rewrite the theory of evolution which made the islands so famous, you can become a tortoise convert.

Advertisement

He wasn’t just cooking slowly. After returning from the islands, he was practicing the art of imitation. If, like a tortoise, he could go up to 18 months without a meal -- he’d make history, conserve his energy and maybe live to be 150 years old.

While we’re waiting for the casserole ... you may want to go to YouTube. Really, you should see these tortoises mate. It takes hours. You could pretend you were Charles Darwin and not just rewrite The Origin of Species but do it longhand in pen and ink, and those two leathery, mud-caked, cold-blooded, shell-encrusted reptiles one on top of the other would still basically be doing what looks like very little but that somehow produces an end result.

My husband was doing the same thing but in a kitchen with food. When you see a field of tortoises, your first thought is they’re just boulders sitting there. Raybo -- who’s always preferred slow and steady to my fast and furious -- had found a new calling. He was auditioning for a spot on the team.

Once you get over how big and slow the tortoises are, you start seeing shreds of green leaves sticking out of their gaping mouths, and then you see one nuzzle up to a female and you can’t imagine what their breath smells like.

You get a little jealous. They can be filthy, smelly, in the process of eating and performing who knows what other bodily functions, and not even having to let their guard down and get out of their shells, and still they get a date but apparently only if they have a very long tail.

The big joke on the islands is wondering, when mating is done, which animal will light a cigarette first. When you watch birds mate on the Galapagos, it takes about a second. You don’t even have time to set-up a joke and it’s over. With the tortoises, you can practice your routine all day long and land it just right: “It looks like Tessy is about to light a smoke but Tommy is still rolling his papers.”

Or stoking the fire or hunting for tobacco or waiting for Godot. No matter what you say, it gets a laugh every time.

Did I mention between the time I usually put eggplant on broil and 7 minutes later when it’s done, I’ve finished at least 12 birdlike tasks that keep me flying around the nest primping and patting and plumping. I understand birds; they’ve got business. Tessy and Tommy? When they throw away the cigarette butts, they’re so wasted you have to be sure they don’t set the whole island on fire.

For some reason, maybe the dozen sharks that circled our boat one night, I asked a guide if tortoises ever get out of their shells. “I mean,” I continued, “couldn’t they slip out every once in a while and run away?”

“Impossible” he muttered, “just plain impossible,” looking at me like I know nothing about evolution.

I beg to differ. In the time it took to cook that casserole, believe me, I could have sprouted a whopping pair of wings.

Donna Debs is a long-time freelance writer, a former radio news reporter, and a certified Iyengar yoga teacher. She lives in Tredyffrin. E-mail her at ddebs@comcast.net.